How Charlottesville Looks From Berlin

[babylonsister]

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/08/16/543808019/the-view-of-charlottesville-from-berlin?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=politics&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170816


How Charlottesville Looks From Berlin
August 16, 201712:18 PM ET

Maggie Penman


To walk around Berlin is to constantly, inevitably, trip over history.

snip//

Seeing the images of young men carrying torches and chanting was perhaps surreal in Washington, but among Berliners there was an added layer of disbelief. While President Trump was being criticized for not explicitly condemning the white nationalist groups responsible for Saturday's violence, Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman called the march "absolutely repulsive" and denounced the "outrageous racism, anti-Semitism and hate in its most despicable form."

One reason for not preserving Hitler's bunker was that it was feared that the site might become a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis; a place of violence and shameless celebration of a history that should be shameful. On Saturday, in a park in Charlottesville, a statue of General Lee became just that. The fact that marchers said their goal was to "take back America" seems especially ironic, since they were celebrating one of the very people whose explicit aim was to dismantle the nation.

Often the argument for preserving Confederate statues and allowing Confederate flags is that we should not forget our history. In Germany, Nazi buildings are extremely hard to come by — nearly all have been destroyed. Yet Germany certainly has not forgotten anything: There's just a recognition that remembering and memorializing are two different things.

Maggie Penman is a reporter/producer at NPR, currently in Berlin as an Arthur F. Burns Fellow.

[Orrex]

1. Here is an incredibly powerful point:

One reason for not preserving Hitler's bunker was that it was feared that the site might become a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis; a place of violence and shameless celebration of a history that should be shameful.

And that, gentle readers, exactly why we shouldn't celebrate Confederate generals with sanctified memorials in the public square, and definitely not on battlefields where they were defeated.

If you must keep them, keep them to remind us of the south's willingness to destroy the republic in order to protect slavery--much like modern capitalists are happy to destroy democracy to protect capitalism.

Obviously racism is not isolated to the south, but this particular chapter of it is grossly unworthy of fond nostalgia.

[babylonsister]

2. Isn't that the reason

OBL was dumped in the ocean, so he wouldn't be martyred? That's what we allowed to let happen.

[bora13]

3. dartmouth-monument

hell, the brits even have a monument to US and allied troops.
and don't forget the many WW2 cemeteries located throughout EU that contain the
remains of US soldiers who died fighting nazi's.

https://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials/europe/dartmouth-monument#.WZYhmyiGNdg


two important points (nazi prop.):

[Amaryllis]

4. This makes so much sense: recognizing and memorializing are two different things.

[peggysue2]

5. New Orleans

My husband and I visited the city several years ago. Great City; we thoroughly enjoyed it. But one of the museums we visited was a Confederate War Museum, a full two-story building dedicated to the 'the noble, lost cause.'

I remember querying (actually whispering to my husband): is there any other great war where the loser is commemorated and honored on this scale? WWI, WWII? Don't think so. My father and father-in-law served during WWII. They both would be turning in their graves at statues dedicated to the memory of their enemies, let alone a bunch of Neo-Nazis marching in the streets of anywhere USA.

It's time to put the Civil War in context. The South lost, the Union survived. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by a white supremacist. Robert E. Lee was on the wrong side of history, placing his home state of Virginia over the continuation of the country to which he'd sworn allegiance. That's called treason. The central issue was slavery--the selling and buying and abuse of human beings, not the apologist's convoluted argument of states' rights. The Civil War cost over 600,000 American lives. And Jackson? Don't even get me started.

This is part of our history. To be taught, surely. And remembered, not honored.

There is a difference. A big, big difference.